Mining the Aperture Robot Repair VR demo

February 22, 2016

Valve published the SteamVR Performance Test today. We'll let Valve explain what it is used for.

The SteamVR Performance Test measures your system's rendering power using a 2-minute sequence from Valve’s Aperture Robot Repair VR demo. After collecting the data it determines whether your system is capable of running VR content at 90fps and whether VR content can tune the visual fidelity up to the recommended level. For machines that are not VR Ready the tool can help determine whether capabilities are bound by Graphics Card, CPU, or both.

Earlier versions of this app (still Aperture Robot Repair back then, before it was moved) had quite a bit of interesting stuff. This was likely Valve's testing ground for messing around with VR in Source 2. We've listed some of the interesting things below.

Most of the content covered in this post has since been removed from the current version of the demo. We however managed to get our hands on an older version of the demo and shared these files with our friends over at ValveTime, so be sure to check out their coverage too.

You can install the SteamVR performance test by clicking here or clicking the "Free" button on the app page.

Portal 2 assets in Source 2

An older version of the Aperture Robot Repair demo also included a full Source 2 conversion of Portal 2 assets. This included materials, models, sounds and particles. Maps and scripts were sadly not converted.

Tool products

There are some tool files included, one of which mentions a list of (we think) supported products.

core vr portal2_imported left4dead3 hl3

core, vr and portal2_imported (the aforementioned asset conversion of P2 assets) are included in the files. HL3 and L4D3 are missing.

Models

C4 Bomb

D0g model

Remember that D0g model "leak" that was causing a stir on Reddit a while ago?
That model is present in the files and the original poster was most likely someone messing around with the VR demo. Image courtesy of ValveTime.

Hi-Res Dota heroes

There's also a bunch of hires models of Dota heroes included.

Miniature apartments

It looks like Valve made an apartment building for Bendy and friends.

The International

Bendy offices

Maps

The demo has a lot of developer/test maps. We've listed some of the interesting ones below. Maps that crashed or that were simply not interesting are left out. We made some quick videos/screenshots of them. ValveTime will have better videos of the test maps later on.

testdemo_cockpit

Map with a cockpit that comes out of the ground. It is safe to assume that in VR you are inside of it. It slowly drops down into space where one can see a nice nebula and starfield. We noticed it looked a bit like the shuttle from Gray Horsfield's work, Facepunch user DevinWatson noted that this looks a lot like Tristan Reidford's work.

YouTube

There is also another version of this map with a slightly fancier cockpit animation named testdemo_cocpit (note the missing k).

vr_valve

Blockout of two floors of Valve's office building.

YouTube

miniature_apartments

Map with a Steam Universe skybox and a house. Screenshots taken with fullbright enabled.

vr_l4d_characters_skody

Lots of missing models, one of them being "models/characters/npc/npc_retired_engineer.vmdl_c" which was leaked before in relation with L4D3.
Missing models also include Source 2 conversions of original survivor models. Some more models (including new guns, an explosive and a new medkit model) spread around the barn.

YouTube

drawer_anim_testmap

An early test of the "Design Center" drawer from the Aperture Robot Repair demo.

YouTube

defend_castle

Room with an orange pylon in the middle with a health percentage hovering over it. Mobs spawn in the room and move towards the tower. Green mobs "eat" the tower, blue mobs fire stuff at it. When the tower hits 0% it just keeps declining into the negatives.

YouTube

secret_shop

Early version of the Dota 2 VR Secret Shop demo. Video also includes a bit of the longbow demo before they switched that over to Unity.

YouTube

vr_aperture_main_elevator

Map that has a (partial) elevator moving down to the base level, and then moving on a conveyor belt. The other part of the elevator remains stuck in the air and houses a Steam Controller and a drawer with some offices.

strider_canyon_02

Doesn't crash anymore! Still lots of missing assets. Has a small platform the size of a regular VR room scale space going back and forth in the middle.

international

Several different International arena concepts are available within the files as well.

test_tearoom_scene_01

Lots of missing assets, but an otherwise pretty cool map with 2 nice looking buildings and some trees.

Other maps

Embedding screenshots for -all- maps would simply be too much images to load. Instead, have some links.

vr_demo_01 and vr_hl2_characters

Identical maps of D0g, an Antlion and some missing HL2 props. Screenshot

vr_atlas_exploded

vr_atlas_pull_test

vr_aperture_main_no_exterior

Early version of the normal Aperture Robot Repair map without any exterior/other rooms.

Full list

Full list of maps and prefabs, note that many don't work in the build we tried them on. However, we've gotten most to somewhat work in a newer build. Maps in bold are maps we've covered in the post. Prefab maps are often used in other maps and will be covered last.

'readonly_tools_asset_info.bin' in the 'vr' folder has the "core vr portal2_imported left4dead3 hl3" line in it for anyone wanting to take a look to confirm.

Also, take a look in the '\vr\bin\win64\' folder, two of those three .dll files reference "HL3" folders relating to GDC 2015 demos. Looks like they've been using HL3 resources to power the demos for a while.

There are also a lot of mentions of "quest" scripts for HL3 files, perhaps those rumours of the game being open world weren't so fake after all.

For some reason in the demo if you enable noclip and enter the visitor room there's a board with QR codes on, the codes read a mix of "Hello :)" to "bad coffee" to links to spam websites.